February 2016 Home Chef Review & $30 Coupon

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home chef february 2016 boxWe loved having breakfast as one of our Home Chef meals last week, so we ordered it again this week!  Home Chef is a meal in a box subscription – every week choose from a variety of recipes and have all the ingredients and preparation instruction delivered to your door.  It’s similar in concept to other weekly meal delivery services, but it has its own unique features and perspectives.

When you sign up you fill out a mini profile of your family and tastes so Home Chef can automatically suggest a weekly menu for you, which you are welcome to change. The selections for this meal subscription are much larger than what is available for other meal kits.  While most meal kits focus on a handful of elegant dinner entrees and the occasional desert, with each designed for two people, Home Chef offers an incredible 10 selections available for 2, 4, or 6 people, a breakfast choice, a smoothie choice, and a fruit basket selection.  The plethora of great choices has us loving this subscription — currently this is the least expensive and has the most choice out of any similar major subscriptions (for 2 people).

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Your weekly parcel contains your recipe cards and all the ingredients for your meals, bundled inside insulated packaging with big ice packs to keep it cold.  Home Chef has tended to require less of a contribution from your own larder than the other subscriptions — while every box has you provide a couple tablespoons of cooking oil and salt and pepper, Home Chef has gone out of its way to provide everything else you need.  They usually include liquid egg when needed (other boxes expect you to have an egg or two on hand), and they even sent a bottle of oil when we were shallow-frying our hushpuppies in a previous box.

home chef february 2016 ice

The meat is placed in the bottom of box and packed with several ice packs.  Even when we neglect to unbox the package right away, the meat has remained very cold.

home chef february 2016 cards

We have been impressed with the recipe choices — they have really tasty sounding recipes for offering so many options!  We also thought the meals were more accessible than the other meal kit subscription boxes, which tend to use lots of ancient grains, alternative greens, exotic spices, and likes to target the foodie crowd.  This subscription has plenty of flavor and variety, but it uses more familiar ingredients. The recipe cards that come with each box have all the info we like to see — prep time, difficulty, and allergen and nutrition info.  They also included a drink pairing suggestion (something other boxes have dabbled in but not stuck with), and a “best cooked by” time frame.

home chef february 2016 recipes
The back of the card has the actual recipe guidance, complete with pictures and boldfacing of ingredients, and an inventory of everything provided.  The recipes had great hints littered throughout — either expanding your cooking vocabulary by explaining cooking terminology (often medieval French) in layman’s terms, or expounding on the benefits of specific techniques.  The only minor annoyance is the adherence to a standard prep order (i.e.:  preheat oven, chop veg, prep meat) — we switch the order a bit where it makes sense.  If you’re an experienced cook we do recommend cooking in the most efficient order (e.g. not pre-heated your oven thirty minutes prior to warming a few tortillas), but for novices we recommend following the directions exactly so you don’t get flustered or lose your place. The recipe cards have pre-punched holes so you can store them in a recipe binder.  This was a clever touch — we review a large volume of meal kit recipes (just guessing, but we have probably prepared more meal kits than anyone in the country who doesn’t work for a meal kit company, since we have reviewed multiple meal kits every week for the last few years), so we don’t save recipes by habit — but providing a folder got me to hang onto the recipe cards.

home chef february 2016 packaging

Each recipe was packed separately, and neatly, in its own bag.  We like to unpack a bit, separating the refrigeration-required and pantry-permissive items.   FYI, this box cost $79.60.

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Cauliflower Bucatini With Brown Butter Mustard Sauce. 35 mins, intermediate, 834 cal. Vegetarian.

Cauliflower Bucatini With Brown Butter Mustard Sauce

This dish really packed in the texture and flavor (and butter), leaving no need for meat.  The prep reminded me a bit of making a fancy salad — we toasted panko to use as croutons, pre-roasted the hearty vegetable, and prepared a very rich dressing — combining everything shortly before plating.  The bucatini was a great choice, as it gripped the sauce and stood up to the big flavors surrounding it.  The pistachios were a bit of an afterthought — they dish had plenty of texture already, and the flavor didn’t really stand out against everything else.  We loved this dish. Megan picked up a box this week too and reviewed it, including this dish.

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Breakfast: Mexican Style Strata With Chorizo, Spicy Salsa, and Tortilla Chips. 40 mins, easy, 962 cal.

Mexican Style Strata With Chorizo, Spicy Salsa, and Tortilla Chips

How’s that for a light breakfast?  We thought this one was a lot of fun.  The casserole (strata) itself wasn’t too spicy (the chorizo blend was flavorful but not crazy hot), so we were able to a spice up individual portions to taste with the fresh peppers.  The eggs and evaporated milk made a great binder, transforming the dish into a true strata.  It didn’t come across as an egg dish — rather as a rich casserole.  The tortilla chips were a nice addition.  They formed a major part of the strata, as well as being served on the side.  They get chewy after awhile, though, so they don’t make for good leftovers… of which there were plenty — the picture above is 1/4 of the dish!

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Chicken with Tiger Sauce With Sugar Snap Peas and Rice. 35 mins, easy, 615 cal.

Chicken with Tiger Sauce With Sugar Snap Peas and Rice

The Tiger Sauce was really delicious and had a wonderfully umami, tangy, sweet, and fiery presence at at once.  The tomato base in combination with the sauces reminded me of the sauce my mom would make for Swiss steak — a great complement for meat that defies precise description.  The Snap peas were tasty and livened up with fresh ginger.  A very simple dish to prepare, this was very satisfying served over simple rice.

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Sirloin Steak with Yukon-Red Pepper Hash And Mustard-Herb Compound Butter. 35 mins, easy, 678 cal.

Sirloin Steak with Yukon-Red Pepper Hash And Mustard-Herb Compound Butte

This dish didn’t quite hit the mark for us, which was a bit of a surprise.  We love steak and roasted veggies, but the flavors just weren’t there in this preparation.  The steak cooked up a little dry (unsure if that was my cooking or if the cut was selected for a heavily-buttered dish because of it’s leanness).  The roasted veg didn’t pop with flavor as we expected, and the addition of raw shallot to the massive pile of compound butter overpowered the mixture.  We made this dish last, so the ingredients were sitting for longer than the other dishes and may have lost some pop. So far out of many many weeks one so-so dish.

We have really enjoyed Home Chef — it doesn’t shy away from offering calorie-laden meals, and there are many, many choices.  It’s great — you can get the really rich dishes, veggie dishes, breakfast, and even a fruit basket!

Visit Home Chef to subscribe or find out more! Get $30 of free food when you sign up – just use this link to get the deal.

The Subscription: Home Chef
The Description: Receive fresh ingredients and visual, step-by-step recipe cards on your selected delivery day every week. Cook like a seasoned chef in your own kitchen with ease.
The Price: $60.00 every week
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The Reviews: See all our Home Chef Reviews.

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